The following is the conference call given by Helga Zepp-LaRouche on June 23, to the European LaRouche Movement membership.

Helga: So, I know that everybody is waiting for a report about the Italian trip, but because of the extremely hot developments, I would like to start in a different way: namely, that the battle is really between the British Empire and the rest of the world, is becoming more clear by the minute.

Let me start with a remarkable article by Ambrose Evans-Pritchard in the Daily Telegraph today, with the headline, "Has Europe's Terminal Crisis Begun with a Triple No Vote?" And then he quite accurately says, "The ultra-Europeans have overplayed their hand. We can now glimpse a chain of events that will hold and reverse this extremist push toward an über-state," using the German word "über-state"—"that almost no one wants." And then he says, "The attempt to override the triple 'no' vote from the French, Dutch, and the Irish people, has brought the European Union to a systemic crisis of legitimacy." So then he quotes the Czech President "Vaclav Havel," 'The treaty is dead,'" obviously, not noticing that President of Czechia is Vaclav Klaus, but that's beside the matter.

And then he basically points to the real problems which now exist, among others, for Ireland, that Ireland has now a household debt of 176% of Gross Domestic Product, and that Ireland is now faced with a quadruple shock: "a credit crunch, rising interest rates in Frankfurt, a plunge in sterling and the dollar, and a sharp slowdown in its Anglo-Saxon export markets." And then he basically says, when Steinmeier called for Ireland to exit from the European Union, this was an "invitation for hedge funds to 'short' EMU bonds from the Club Med states."

But then comes the real shocker: He says, basically, that after the Lisbon Treaty debacle, the next shoe to fall could be the European Monetary System, because Europe has no tools to deal with the present crisis, because they don't have a de facto European Union treasury, a unified wage system, and some prospect for debt and pensions bail-out, and "None of this exists. Nor will it. The elites have now to face the great euro storm of 2008-2009, with the limited tools they have, bridging the economic chasm between north and south as best they can."

Now this is really a certain historic justice, because I just want to remind people, how did the euro and the European Monetary Union come into being? People will remember that it was the Thatcher-Mitterrand plot forcing Kohl to capitulate to the European Monetary Union, despite the fact that even Kohl at the time, after '89-'90, said that he was absolutely convinced that a European Monetary Union would not function without a European political union, and that he only capitulated because of the Fourth Reich campaign, Mitterrand's open threats with war, and the whole European Union pouncing on him at the Strasbourg summit in December '89. And then Kohl, despite his better knowledge, capitulated to the European Monetary Union.

So then, belatedly, they tried to get the European political union, which didn't function, because by that time, in 2005, the French and the Dutch already had gotten the idea of what was the negative effect of the euro, so that's why they refused the constitution. And now this trick didn't function to push it through by stealth.

So there's another very interesting article in the Telegraph, that "A Second Irish Referendum? I Don't Think So." And they quote a correspondent from Brussels, Bruno Waterfield, describing the mood in Brussels. And they say, Shakespeare's fitting words for every situation, and this one is no exception: "The mood in Brussels is aptly described by these lines from Richard II:

Now for the rebels which stand out in Ireland,
Expedient manage must be made, my liege,
Ere further leisure yield them further means
For their advantage and your highness' loss.

So, in plain English, it means "Do something quick, or else the Irish will come up with something more."

And then the article continues, Brian Cowen is a Euro-fanatic, but even he will think twice before doing what his predecessor did, sacrificing himself for the European Union only to find out that that sacrifice was for nothing."

So, they are quite at a loss and in general, all the mood is against the continuation of this. There is a poll in Britain which says that only 19% of the British are for the European Treaty, 44% against, and then they have another article that, a guy called Timothy Garton Ash, has a "Plan E" for the Treaty, which is all just reflecting that they have no concept what to do about it at all.

Now, however, quite amazing is what we found out from sources in Italy, is that Italian President Napolitano is intervening personally against journalists who dare to challenge the Lisbon Treaty. In one case, the editor of Il Sole 24 Ore was called and yelled at by Napolitano because he wrote this article talking positively about the book of Professor Guarino, which will come out, by the way, tomorrow. And according to Maurizio Blondet, Napolitano said that "those who are anti-European Union are terrorists. It's psychological terrorism to evoke the specter of a European super-state." And Blondet therefore, concludes that Napolitano calls the Czech President Vaclav Klaus a "terrorist."

Now, it should be noted that Napolitano is a follower of Spinelli, the founder of the European Federalist Society. Spinelli published a manifesto in 1943 calling for the abolition of nation-states in Europe. So this is really a nest of British agents. Barbara Spinelli, who's Spinelli's daughter, made the famous interview with Amato which we quoted in all our publications, and she is the lover of former ECB director Tommaso Padoa Schioppa, who also wrote books against the Treaty of Westphalia.

So, the situation in Czechia doesn't look good for the Lisbon Treaty. The constitutional court there is now asking for the authentic consolidated version in Czech—which doesn't exist, as we know.

But we should not be complacent about this, because as much as it goes badly for the British concerning the Lisbon Treaty, they are shifting gears, and it is very clear that they have an alternative policy: And that is if the European Treaty fails, then they will push this League of Democracy concept, which was also endorsed by Obama and others: basically the idea to go for humanitarian interventions in the Third World.

British War against Zimbabwe

And there, the situation is absolutely dramatically heating up: Concerning Zimbabwe, where we have very qualified information that there are British secret service-trained militias deployed. For example, the so-called Third Force elements are reactivated, which really come from the liberation war of '70s, the so-called Selous Scouts—these are British-trained militias which also operated in Kenya where they had infiltrated the Mau Mau at the time, and in Zimbabwe, they had worked as part of the Rhodesian army, where they killed 68% of the freedom fighters between '73 and '79.

Also at the border of Zimbabwe with Mozambique, the Renamo has resurfaced on the side of the Zimbabwe opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). The Renamo are also militias which had been used by the South African apartheid regime of the '80s and '90s, and who also were later in the '80s used against the war in Zimbabwe. So you have a full-fledged activation of these probably predecessor or part of the BAE apparatus. And that's what we should use internationally, because Economic Cooperation Minister Wieczorek-Zeul and Foreign Minister Steinmeier and all of these people, they are complete morons and demand a UN Security Council meeting, which will probably happen, because on Monday, because the United States, which has the chairmanship of the UN Security Council at this moment, is demanding to have it on the agenda. And this whole thing also makes clear what was the background of this unrest in South Africa in the last weeks, and the fact that Kenya Prime Minister Odinga is also now demanding a peace intervention in Zimbabwe really makes clear what this whole picture is.

Now, the MDC's Tsvangirai has fled into the Dutch embassy—which is very interesting!—and the spokesman for the Foreign Ministry in Holland said that Holland has in the past financed human rights groups in Zimbabwe and this may be the reason why he chose the Dutch Embassy. In any case, police stormed the headquarters of the MDC, people were arrested, and the situation is very hot. People are also being shot at openly in the streets, so it is very, very hot, and it's important that we really get this information out about these British militias. Because this is the effort to bring the war, which the British are losing in Europe, to Africa and other parts of the world.

Financial Storms

Now, very, very, interesting is also the fact that Tremonti is obviously in good spirits, because he addressed a meeting of the Italian trade union confederation CISL, and said that "commodities speculation is the plague of the 21st century." And he said, we shouldn't call inflation, inflation because this is actually really international speculation, and he said that even the government plan of his own government, which he is a part of, he called "surrealistic" because it projects a planned inflation of 1.7%, and he says this is basically because the ECB demands the inflation rate should be under 2%. And then, he gives the real ECB telephone number for people to call, if they have any problems with inflation, call the ECB. He said "Public Enemy Number One is speculation," speculation is the plague of the century, so he's really asking the trade unions to join him in the fight against it.

So then, the Financial Times obviously now realizes that Tremonti is in a powerful position, because, belatedly they now publish a review of his book Fear and Hope. So that's very interesting.

Now, I don't know, if we really had this in the briefing, because when I was in Italy, I couldn't read the briefing carefully, but I find it very remarkable that the Bank of Scotland had warned already on June 18th of a market crash which would be the worst in the past 100 years, predicting a 300 point drop in the Wall Street equities on the S&P500 index, and quoting the bank's credit strategist, saying "a very nasty period is soon to be upon us." And this is exactly what Lyn has been saying the whole time, that the next month or two months and so forth, will really be unprecedented in terms of financial turmoil. And there is actually a very interesting reflection in the great newspaper of Wiesbaden, where the some commentator who's otherwise an analyst from Frankfurt, mocks this Bank of Scotland, saying these "doomday sayers" this is all wrong, blah, blah, blah. And basically saying the banks will always be bailed out. But Lyn already correctly said, Bear Stearns was the end of it.

So basically, the situation is really coming to a head, and this whole issue of speculation, by the way, was also very prominent at the Jeddah meeting of the oil ministers, where the French Environment Minister Louis Borloo, also said speculation has to be brought under control as "an absolute necessity."

However, we really should not be let down our absolute determination to win this fight, because the FAO conference was a total, utter failure, and because they did not adopt any of the required measures which I had called for in my call to double food production, and people are dying as a result! And not only because of a lack of food, but according to a WHO international conference on water, which is taking place in Singapore right now, up to 1.6 million people could die this year alone, of dirty drinking water. So that is just another element of this whole situation.

Political Storms

Now, on a different subject, there was yesterday, in DreiSat TV, a very remarkable program in Sternstunden der Philosophie "Philosophy's Star-Struck Hour," where under the title Staatsräson, Dick Marty, the former chief investigator of the Parliamentary Assembly of the European Council, really had a very blasting attack on the coverup by the Swiss government on the pressure the U.S. government has imposed on the Swiss government to destroy certain documents pertaining to the CIA rendition flights, and secret files, which the Swiss government destroyed on the request of the U.S., according to Staatsräson. But then he went into a real blast of the attitude of the European governments that they didn't want to look at this, the CIA rendition issue, everybody knew but they did say. And then, he basically said this is all connected to the secret armies after the Second World War, Gladio and P26 in Switzerland, which were these networks created by NATO, and that is what is operating today in the Abu Omar case, and also the pressure by the U.S. on Swiss UBS to break its banking secrets and so forth.

Now, I saw the program by accident, and I must say, I have never, or rarely heard such an open attack on the collusion of the European governments that they don't know anything about it.

Now, on another front— should have mentioned it in the context of what is happening with Zimbabwe, actually: Is the Iran issue. Where Ray McGovern put out that he is very concerned about Iran, and he said that there was, at the press conference between Olmert and Bush, that somehow Olmert indicated that he got a full agreement from Bush that he would deal with the Iran problem before he would leave office. Now this is what has been circulating a lot, and that is obviously a very big danger. And it does not help that the European Union agreed to have new sanctions against Iran, among other things, prohibition for business for the Iranian state bank, Melli, in Europe; and the European Union is now planning to freeze the assets of the Melli bank, and that obviously, many are now afraid that Iran, could, as a counter, not pay its debt to European firms. And that would hit among others, German firms which have outstanding debt in many billions of euros. So this is really one of these things of shooting yourself in the foot.

Now, just to mention this, for the U.S. election campaign: As of now, and you probably have a better insight on that in the United States, but from what I know is there is a big fallout among thieves between Howard Dean and Soros, and other elements of the Obama campaign. Hillary is doing basically nothing in particular right now. But Obama is now under massive attack because of the connection of his advisors to the ethanol industry, which get billions and billions in subsidies. Now, also Tom Daschle, who is the advisor to Obama in energy, is himself on the boards of three ethanol firms, and Daschle works for a law firm, where he is offering strategic and political advice to clients in the area of "renewable energies."

Also Obama's chief advisor, Jason Grumet is listed as Executive Director in the National Commission on Energy Policy, and Daschle and Dole are also working together in the area of Archer Daniels Midland, and ADM is the largest American ethanol producer and has its main seat in Obama's state, Illinois. So therefore, the New York Times today has an article raising the suspicion that Obama is not neutral in this ethanol debate, because he comes from Illinois, a state where a lot of ethanol is made, and therefore is profiting from the ethanol boom, because of the subsidies. And Obama also did make use airplanes from Archer Daniels Midland where he could fly very cheaply. So this is all not really helping. And McCain is obviously using it immediately, by demanding that the subsidies for ethanol should be reduced, and we should hold onto our seats, how this thing is continuing.

The LaRouches' Visit to Rome

So, with this very dramatic picture, I just should say that we did have a very productive and very successful trip to Rome. And it was successful and very useful on three important flanks: 1) the New Bretton Woods, where we had a Senate meeting with cross-party participation, which was very, very good, and you can expect things to occur. Also in the second flank, concerning the European Union Treaty, a lot of interesting things were done. And thirdly, the doubling of the food campaign. So I think it was really good that we went.

Now, there was this meeting in the Senate, then there was the Giovanni Galloni, Moro book presentation, where Lyn made a major comment, and it found, obviously, extreme interest by all the participants; and Lyn addressed a university meeting which was organized by Professor Brandimarte, despite the fact that there was a real idiot Professor defending Newton, it did open up some very interesting contacts for follow-up and further things. And then, naturally, we had various private meetings which were extremely important and useful.

Our Responsibility to Win

So therefore, if you look at this picture, we really have our work cut out for us: You have Lyn's Four Nations paper [ed- soon to be released publicly], which is really urgent, and people should study it, because he does address the question of on what principles must the new world economic order be put on. We should absolutely escalate the fight for the New Bretton Woods, especially as the idea that we do have a systemic crisis is now spreading, and more and more people readily agree to that. And basically, we will have some event on that during the summer period here in Germany. Then obviously, the campaign to double food production must be escalated. We must raise the issue with more and more, get more signers, get more debate, and in general, really escalate all of these activities, to influence the various forums which are taking place now, because of the recognition that the FAO conference was a failure. There will take place many different meetings, conferences, which we should all map out, address, and get our material to, with the idea that we must absolutely change the agenda at the upcoming UN General Assembly in September. Because that may be a very last chance to really have a public debate among all the countries of the world to put the new world economic order on the table.

Obviously, that does not lessen the demand and task to get the United States to make the offer to Russia, China, and India, but we should also remember, that we have a great tradition in doing this kind of work, when Lyn wrote the IDB paper in 1975, we mobilized for almost a year, until the Colombo, Sri Lanka conference in 1976, where 85 nations of the Non-Aligned Movement were putting the IDB, de facto, on the table, by putting the new world economic order into the final resolution—and now, 32 years later—I mean this is really remarkable—all of these issues are fully back. The only difference is that I think a lot of illusions about the powers-that-be and the sustainability of the financial system of globalization are out of the window. And therefore, there is a tremendous vacuum for us to say, "we have the solution, we have to go back to Franklin D. Roosevelt, the New Deal, but this time not only for the United States, but for the whole world. And the Eurasian Land-Bridge reaching into Africa and into Latin America, is really what is required to be put on the table."

So, I think we have a tremendously dangerous picture—I mean, I think people should really not be complacent—and I think we have a tremendous historical responsibility to really win this fight. Because every hour which we lose, and every opportunity which we miss may not be retrievable: So I really urge every member of this organization [both in the United States, and worldwide] to be on the biggest alert of your entire life. Because it's these days and weeks which are absolutely decisive for the outcome of the next generations of civilization. And I think the danger is really big. But on the other side, the chances—you know, if you have a plan and if you act for the good, that you can win, I think really is also demonstrated by the miserable fate of this Lisbon monster.

So, with that I really want to wish you a productive week, and we have to win. So with that spirit, you have to proceed.